Quote:
Originally Posted by ***First of Two Latin Kings***
The point I was trying to make is that I'm desperate to just break even on the one I bid on so I can pay for it. Hard to pay for something when you don't have money.
I'm 33. No younger than the majority here. I'm just straight-forward regarding my opinions and some don't take kindly to that in these here parts.
You would think after two years teaching community college after finishing a Master's degree and two and a half years as a grill closer at a fast food place, I would have matured considerably throughout the decade that was my twenties. You would have thought wrong.  |
I think the lesson to your first point is to make sure you can cover your commitments in the event that something unexpected happens.
YOU made the choice to try to work as a middle man...connecting a seller to an end buyer and making a little money for your efforts. In doing so, you accepted a risk. That risk comes in the form of people backing out of deals for any reason you can think of. If either side backed out of the deal, you'd be on the hook. If the buyer backed out, it's on you to still pay the seller fulfill the agreement you made with the seller. If the seller backs out, it's on you to smooth it over with the end buyer to make sure your reputation isn't tarnished (remember, a bad reputation means fewer customers, which means less money coming in).
That's the risk of operating the way you did. Passing the penalties of that risk to the seller just because eBay gives you X number of strikes before any real action is taken smacks of an unscrupulous person. The seller didn't willingly enter into risky agreement with a third party. Their agreement is with you. Being a man of your word means doing what you say you're going to do, even if that means paying for an item you were buying for someone else even when the buyer flakes on you.
You're entitled to have any opinion you wish. Your opinions aren't the issue here; it's your actions. It's your actions that define your integrity. You can have the opinion that the buyer who backed out is a moron and that it's total bullplop that he put you in a sticky situation so long as your actions reinforce that you're a person with integrity.
Whenever I run into an issue in an online sale, I ask myself...am I acting with integrity? Am I keeping my word? I think if more people did this, online sales problems would dwindle significantly.